Organizing Isolation on Peach, and Other Poetry #Wins This Week

been a week full of poetry #wins.

1. Me on Peach.
2. Babble at Geneseo.
3. Dave Eggers at Bable.
4. Toni Morrison on her way to Buffalo.
5. Eve Wilson on AFROPUNK.
6. Prince on Foundlings.

This isn't in chronological order, nor is it in order of importance. But this post started as a way to share the poems from my new book that Peach Mag featured today. The Peach patrol picked three poems from ORGANIZING ISOLATION to post. They're an interesting cross-section of what you'd find in the book -- page poems, voice poems, and poems that don't really qualify as poems.

Now: "Eulogy, from The Sister [June 2015]," "The Sister [September 2015]," and "Postscript from Plugfish [May 2016]," three visuals poems by Aidan Ryan from his forthcoming debut collection, ORGANIZING ISOLATION (Linoleum Press). 🍑 "I've never heard anyone shuffle like god but I'm glad we are continuing" 🍑 link in bio | peachmgzn.com/aidan-ryan

A post shared by Peach Mag (@peachmgzn) on Apr 21, 2017 at 7:25am PDT

"Eulogy, from The Sister [June 2015]," "The Sister [September 2015]," and "Postscript from Plugfish [May 2016]" are live on the Peach site now.This is the first time anyone outside a small circle has seen these poems. I read a different batch Wednesday night in Geneseo. The "Babble" poets (Justin Karcher, Ben Brindise, Megan Kemple, and I) read from our new books to an audience comprised of Geneseo's Poets' Society, Slam Team, and faculty. We had a great time with the same audience at the Idle Hour bar afterward.

I've not even known these #poetrycats for a year, but it feels like we've been a #squad since the swing sets. Had a grand old time reading to students at @sunygeneseo last night. This isn't the last we've seen of those new friends...or of Kelly's Saloon and the Idle Hour. Until next time.

A post shared by Aidan Ryan (@aidanlyaeus) on Apr 20, 2017 at 5:03pm PDT

If you can, please come to the official launch party for Organizing Isolation: Half-Lives of Love at Long Distance on April 28th, 7pm at 25 E. Huron St. in Buffalo. We're on the fifth floor in the CEPA Studio Gallery. Readers include Gerry Crinnin, Max Crinnin, Noah Falck, and Alana Kelley. My publisher, Joel Brenden of Linoleum Press, will also speak about the project, and I'm going to have a few prints of the poems on display.After all this work on OI, though, I felt a little wiped Thursday night, when I'd planned on going to Bable. (Although it might just have been the dinner of Pringles and a Game of Thrones beer before Wednesday's Geneseo performance.) I missed Dave Eggers, and missed the announcement of next year's lineup, which includes Toni Morrison (!)!Other news: Earlier this week, Eve Williams Wilson appeared in the AFROPUNK Facebook feed with her new poem "I know you Rachel Dolezal."https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Feveunfiltered%2Fvideos%2F726087750905327%2F&show_text=1&width=560This isn't the first time Eve's been trending, but 160,069 views in three days? GODDAMN! Naturally, she lit a brushfire controversy that kept the comment section blazing for a while. (A surprisingly large number of Sandra Bullock fans were still blowing on embers all the way through 4/20, when most of the other commenters had come to the conclusion that Eve's amazing, and left the thread to focus on other cherries.) We don't have many tall buildings in Buffalo, but pretty soon Eve's going to be staring comfortably over their tops, joining the small group of Buffalo writers who've earned a national audience.Lastly, Prince died one year ago today. A few weeks ago, Vanity Fair sent me a spam email hyping an autobiography from Prince's first wife. The subject line of the email -- "Prince's First Wife Tells All" -- set me off to writing a poem. It's live on the Foundlings website today, in honor of the artist.